One challenge that all fantasy authors face when they decide to write characters that belong to a different race or species than the stock-standard Human is how to keep track of the relative abilities and shortcomings of the different races. The disadvantage of writing designs for each race in one’s stories is that it involves a lot of homework and researching things about how other authors have written characters of similar or even identical racial traits. And if your characters are anything like the characters in my stories, one also has to figure out how one is going to depict how being born of parents from two different races is going to affect the resultant child. So the question to ask oneself first is how are the peoples of different stock-standard races designed, and why? Why, as a question, is an author’s best friend. When an author is struggling to come up with material, asking why Trór Gravewater should be noticeably taller and heavier than other Dwarrow can give them a few thousand words to divert into whilst thinking over the story’s next move.
In that spirit, I will show you a rough translation of all the notes I have in my collection about the different races of Kali-Yuga and how they differ. Differ both in function and abilities. Take note that these are only guide notes and not game design notes. None of the rules given here should be taken as absolute, especially since one of the spices of writing longform fiction is to turn characters into individuals.
The first race of Kali-Yuga we shall concern ourselves with in this writing is the Humans. Continue Reading
I Still Find It So Hard... 